These Christian groups love guns though. I bet you can still buy guns with visa/mastercard. Go buy guns.
Then go show off your guns to these Christians.
This group in particular (Collective Shout) is Australian, and they’re anti-gun, it’s just not a key part of their advocacy. They have claimed that GTA is responsible for mass shootings.
Claiming that GTA is responsible for mass shootings is an example of what pro-gun activists do in order to deflect the blame off of guns.
In the US, that is often true, but Australian Christian conservatism doesn’t have the same pro-gun culture as the US.
Implement a system similar to a Steam wallet.
Unless they make that completely seamless behind the scenes, I can’t see that working. Most people don’t use crypto and don’t want to learn how. It also requires users to sign up for a crypto exchange, which requires people to register with a photo ID. Additionally, it is difficult to exchange exactly the amount you need to purchase something, because of how volatile the currencies are. You end up spending more than the cost of the thing you are buying, just to be sure that you have enough. And then you’re in the digital currency problem of “I want the $3 skin but the smallest package I can buy is $5 worth of V Bucks”, which always feels like a ripoff.
I have to buy $5 of crypto but I’m going to be charged $5 in broker fees
Dan Olson’s documentary is as true as ever. Stop recommending an environment-destroying investment scam to people. You aren’t helping, and I’m not going to be left holding your bag.
Edit: lmao they edited their crypto hawking out of their post
I’ve seen this a lot, and there are problems with it. People are not going to want to go through setting up a crypto wallet just to buy a game. People are not going to be happy with Itch.io doing it transparently behind the scenes (who knows where they are sending it to). Creators are not going to be happy with having to pay higher transaction fees. And all this would apply to all games sold on Itch, not just the spicy ones, since Mastercard and Visa would absolutely block them if they tried it.
Why not just use something like Wero (or a hypothetical global equivalent) and use direct bank to bank transfers with no payment processor acting as an intermediary?
since Mastercard and Visa would absolutely block them if they tried it.
They didn’t block Steam back when it accepted Bitcoin, or even complain afaik
Steam wasn’t using it to bypass their policies and demands.
Yeah, but it wouldn’t be realistic to say “we accept crypto now and also are refusing to comply with credit card content policies” right away anyways, because that would just lose them all their business. The better plan would be to do what they seem to be doing; comply in the short term as best they can, while simultaneously looking to branch out with the payment options they accept, so that at some point in the future credit card companies might have less leverage.
I don’t think that someone is talking about using BTC or ETH. They’re literally unusable to make purchases (multiple minute settling times and the high costs you mentioned) but any other functional L1 would work. Algorand for examply has ~3second block times with instant finality and costs a fraction of a fraction of a cent to use the network. Those fees couple be subsidised they’re so low. They’re significantly lower than a rail like Visa or MasterCard. But you’re right, implementing it so anyone can easily use and access it is key.
Edited bad autocorrect
On the one hand, yes, it’s a solid alternative because it’s decentralized and can even be untraceable (see Monero), but on the other hand, it’s been under attack for the past years. I would disagree it’s censorship-resistant, because if you make it illegal or hard to buy and sell crypto, few would be dedicated enough to go around that. Moreover, your proposed solution would still rely on some gateway between crypto and fiat, which would be vulnerable to pressure.
Good. I hope they succeed!
Would GNU Taler be useful in this situation?
